THE FLOOR Post-Mortem: Anthony Carbone Reflects on the Season 2 Winner

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of THE FLOOR.]

THE FLOOR crowned its season 2 winner on Wednesday, December 18: Keelan! 

The underdog had laid low for most of the season, winning a single round back in episode 2 (back in October), before he made it to the finale…and taking the first two rounds in the best-of-three battle with runner-up Jennifer.

With the victor not getting a huge amount of airtime via duels, THE FLOOR showrunner Anthony Carbone acknowledges the team was conscious of making sure viewers were familiar with Keelan before his big moment.

“Obviously, before we go into the edit, we know who our winner is [and] we want to make sure that it’s not, ‘Who’s this person?’ by the end of it,” Carbone tells Give Me My Remote. “Keelan is an interesting situation because everyone was so wary of [his category,] the periodic table. ‘I don’t want to take on the periodic table!’ Which to me is bananas. There were actually a slew of contestants that would have taken him on, but they just got eliminated and that’s just luck of the draw. But to me, it was bananas that anyone would be afraid of a category that is literally studyable with flashcards. Like, I think I could beat Keelan in periodic table—give me a few hours to go through the flashcards every night…There’s going to be, at max, 50 photos; what are the 50 most popular periodic [elements]? As opposed to, you know, pastries—how do you study? I think finite categories are actually [a] much more easy thing to take on because you can study for it.”

“But to me, that’s the game, right?” he continues. “And I’m sure [Keelan] played this in the background, too, when they were in the dressing room, ‘No one will beat me at periodic table. So take me on, and I will destroy you, because I know every single thing, and I will never make a mistake.’ Is that true? I don’t know. But it is what protects them. So we make sure that if someone is the winner of the show, that you get to know them a little bit and get to see their journey and get to see their story—whether it’s playing the game or whether it’s in the background being part of the floor.”

And the sheer number of contestants this season (100 in season 2, up from season 1’s 81) led to more episodes—but also took even more control out of the hands of the producers. While there’s very little they can actually influence (thanks to game show rules and regulations), they did land on one thing that made sure they almost certainly wouldn’t enter the finale with a player who had no experience in the duels.

“An actionable change we’ve done since season 1 was—which the Dutch format didn’t do—is that only people who haven’t played can be randomized,” Carbone notes. “So that actually solves the issue of someone who hasn’t played being in the end game. And we’ve done three seasons [production-wise], and there’s never been that situation happening.”

But, he concedes, once the game starts, “there is no control. All the time contestants are like, ‘This isn’t random,’ but it is; we have to follow laws. I wish we could be like, ‘Man, let’s go over there. That’s the best story.’ But we have to randomize. It’s a random draw. We deal. And then the game plays out the way the game plays out. And we just have to roll with the story, roll with the fun.”

“Thankfully, the show is just inherently fun to watch in terms of the duels and things of that nature,” Carbone continues. “And so that’s it. As a producer, you’re just like, ‘Okay, well, this is where the story is going. How do we make that the most interesting ride for the audience?’ And you have to accept what it is; there’s just no two ways about it.”

Carbone acknowledges he is not sure if it would make a difference for the audience if the final duels were between contestants who had spent weeks winning prior to the finale.

“The game is such [where] there’s skill and there’s luck—and luck is a huge part,” he says. “When you’re randomized, who takes you on?….you can only control the categories. So we have discussed, if we’re doing future seasons [beyond the already-produced season 3], are there other changes? So we’ll always be looking at, do we do something to make it if you win this many things…who knows? I don’t know. It is something to discuss. We love how the game plays out.”

“It’s funny,” he continues. “Like, Keelan obviously won there, but Jen could have won, and Jen had won a ton of duels. The same thing happened in season 1, right? Like, Arthur had won a ton of duels, and that’s just the way it’s been at this point. I don’t know if it’s necessarily the worst problem in the world. Like the game is the game, and everyone who comes into it understands that it’s a mix of luck and skill. You can only do so much to make sure you’re set up for the win. But you know, once you make a plan, it can get thrown out the window when someone selects you. And now you’ve inherited whatever random thing you’ve inherited.”

But, the showrunner reiterates, in all aspects of the game, “we’re always looking to improve. We’re always looking at, ‘What will make this game better? What will keep contestants on their toes? What will just make it a much more fun watch as our audiences come in and watch it with their families?’”

RELATED:

• THE FLOOR: Anthony Carbone Dishes on Season 2’s Changes and Big Final Showdown
• Fox Swaps Post-Super Bowl Series to THE FLOOR
• Fox Renews THE FLOOR

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